A long, sighing breath of relief escaped her when she reached the lobby and saw Jason on his phone at the end of the registration desk, just outside the business center. He’d apparently already made the copies; a small sheaf of papers lay on the narrow counter. He was intent on his conversation, making an occasional gesture like someone more used to giving orders in person.
Giving orders? Where had that idea come from? Kendall wondered as she crossed the carpeted lobby silently. She paused a few feet behind him, not wanting to intrude, but wondering who he was talking to. He sounded like he was giving orders, too, she thought, unable to help hearing his brusque tone.
“. . . deal with that when I get back . . . more important right now . . . I’ve called it all in . . . Alexander has the largest block . . . get the papers.”
She took a step closer. Jason stiffened, as if he’d sensed her presence. But he didn’t turn, didn’t even look over his shoulder.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I can. I don’t know when I’ll be back. This is getting . . . complicated. Right.”
He hung up without saying good-bye to whoever it was. He gathered up the papers from the counter. Only then did he turn around. If he was surprised to see her, it didn’t show in his face.
But she hadn’t expected it to; he was too practiced in concealing himself. Even she, with the perception Aaron had touted as her greatest asset, could only read him erratically. And the fact that when she could, far too often what she glimpsed was a coldness, a harshness that surpassed even his father’s, did nothing to ease her nerves this morning. Only the memory of last night, the warmth with which he’d looked at her, the passion with which he’d taken her and let her take him, and the tenderness with which he’d held her this morning could do that. And if her brain told her she was a fool for believing in that kind of flimsy, superficial reassurance, then so be it; she was a fool.
“You were gone a long time,” she began.
“I had another call I had to make,” he said, his voice no longer brusque, but hardly the warm, tender thing it had been in the night.
“Is . . . something wrong?”
“No. Not really. Just some . . . details.” His mouth quirked. “I do have a job, you know.”
“No. I didn’t know.”
She felt her cheeks heat. My God, she’d slept with the man and didn’t even know that much about him. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t have done anything more out of character if she’d tried. She lowered her gaze, unable to meet his eyes. She had little experience with these kinds of doubts, because she never did the kind of thing she’d done last night. She was out of her depth, and she knew it.
“Your investigator didn’t get that far?”
Her gaze shot back to his face. She knew there was no way he could know she’d just been talking to the man, but she had to stifle a guilty start anyway.
“No,” she said, agreeing in what she hoped was a casual tone, since there didn’t seem to be any point in denying what he already knew. “So what do you do?”
He looked at her for a silent moment. “Maybe I’ll just wait and let George tell you.”
Kendall’s breath caught. George?
“Google, honey.”
He said it gently, for all the world sounding like he meant the endearment. So why did it make her shiver, and not in a pleasant way? She drew herself up straight, not that it mattered; he still towered over her.
“He’s the detective who was trying to find you for Aaron.”
“I presumed that.” His voice was inflectionless. “And he kept investigating me, didn’t he? After I showed up here?”
She didn’t know what to say. Except that she couldn’t lie to him. She finally just said it. “Yes, I didn’t think you were going to help me fight Alice. I needed to know who you were. So I could convince you.”
“At least you’re honest.” He looked at her for a long, silent moment, as if he was thinking about what he’d just said. Then, slowly, one corner of his mouth lifted. “Don’t worry about it, Kendall. It’s exactly what I would do.”
Relief that he wasn’t angry filled her, followed quickly by a stab of consternation; this was something that hadn’t occurred to her. “Did you?”
“No. I didn’t plan on getting that . . . involved. I didn’t think it mattered . . . who you really were.”
Again her breath seemed to lodge in her throat. “And . . . now?”
He grinned. Or started to; the expression faded almost as soon as it had begun. It was as if he’d meant to give her that crooked grin, but couldn’t quite pull it off.
“Now,” he said, his voice oddly strained, as if he was fighting saying the words, “it matters.”
“CHARLES IS GOING to start back right away,” Kendall said as she hung up the phone.
Jason looked up from the copy of the codicil he’d been reading. All his casual dismissal of the figure aside, he’d been more than a little stunned to read in black and white the extent of what Aaron had left him. And one stark, painful phrase, personal amid all the legalese, kept spinning in his mind. “Although there is no excuse for my years of neglect, this is the best I can do to give my son what he should have had long ago.” He hated his own reaction, hated that he could even think of his father without the fierce burst of loathing he’d always felt.
“Jason?”
Her voice was soft, her eyes wide with a concern that told him what must be showing in his face. His jaw tightened at the uncharacteristic lack of control he seemed to be cursed with of late, and he schooled his expression to neutrality.
“What did you say? I was reading.”
She glanced down at the papers he held, and at those lying in front of where he sat cross-legged on the bed.
“You hadn’t really looked at it before, had you?”
“No.”
“And now that you have?”
“He sounds like an old man trying to ease a guilty conscience.”
“Oh, he was that, all right,” Kendall agreed. “But he was much more, too. I think you know that now.”
“Still hoping I’ll forgive him?”
“No. Aaron knew that was too much to ask. He just hoped you might . . . understand.”
Jason grimaced. He did understand, a little, now that he’d seen and dealt with the woman who had run Aaron’s life. He might not agree with what his father’s priorities had been, since he hadn’t been one of them, but once he accepted them, it was easy to see why Aaron Hawk had become the man he’d been. And Jason wasn’t sure he didn’t resent that understanding; he didn’t want to feel anything for his father but the driving hatred that had fueled his entire life.
“I tried to get Aaron to write you,” Kendall said.
“What?”
“To write you. Before he died. A letter . . . explaining everything. Why he did what he did. Or didn’t do. I knew there was more to why he’d quit looking for you than he’d told me, but he would never explain. He refused to explain to you, either. He said he’d never given excuses in his life, he wasn’t about to do it now that he was dying.”
Although there is no excuse for my years of neglect . . .
“And besides, he said if you’d turned into any kind of a Hawk, you wouldn’t accept excuses anyway. I think he was right about that.”
He looked up at that, but saw only amusement in her eyes. Amusement, and something that looked almost like tenderness. That disconcerted him; he didn’t want her looking at him like that. All he wanted from her was . . . was what? He needed her, yes, to help keep Alice occupied, and distracted enough not to pay too close attention to what was going on. And he needed her handy, in case she had some other bits of information that he might want later. Her kind of knowledge could be very useful.
And, he thought, heat knifing through him, he
needed her like he’d had her last night, naked and panting for him to take her. And this morning when, to drive home the point that this was her choice, he had made her take him, had made her be the aggressor, the leader, using his body to assure the pleasure of her own. That she had driven him to the brink of madness in the process didn’t matter, he told himself. Nor did the fact that while he held her, he’d never once thought of anything but her. Or the fact that Kendall made him wonder about things he’d never wondered about before.
What mattered was that Kendall would never be able to look back and say she hadn’t really wanted this, that she hadn’t known what she was doing. Why it mattered to him he wasn’t certain; such things had certainly never bothered him in the past.
He saw her eyes widen, and guessed that once again his usual poker face had failed him. Her lips parted, and the tip of her tongue crept out to moisten her lips. Need slammed through him—hot, hard, and relentless—and it was all he could do not to grab her and throw her down on the bed amid the copies of Aaron’s will. It seemed appropriate, somehow, but he knew if he gave in to the temptation, he would embarrass himself with his haste; he didn’t think he could even wait long enough to get either of them undressed.
Even that image, both of them still dressed, jeans merely unzipped and shoved out of the way enough that he could drive home into her body, nearly made the decision for him. It took all his considerable discipline to fight back the compulsion.
He made himself look back at the set of copies he held, only now realizing he’d crumpled them with the sudden tightness of his grip. “What—” He broke off when he heard how he sounded, swallowed, and tried again. “What were you saying about Wellford?”
For a moment there was silence. When at last she spoke, Kendall’s voice sounded much like his had, as if she’d known exactly what kind of battle he’d just fought.
“He’s cutting his trip short and starting back tomorrow night. He has a meeting he can’t miss tomorrow, but he’s going to take a late flight immediately afterward.”
“He . . . believes you, then.” Jason was back in control now. Or he would be, he thought, as soon as his body realized it wasn’t going to get what it wanted right now.
“Some people do,” she said.
He looked up at her again; the amusement was back. And this time he managed to smile back at her. “And some of us are more stubborn, is that it?”
“But worth convincing,” she said softly. And suddenly it was there again, the memory of last night, alive and blistering between them. And seeing it in her eyes had him nearly as aroused as he’d been moments before.
“Damn,” Jason muttered. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Kendall sighed. “I know. We have work to do.”
No one had ever looked at him like that before, with such an expression of honest yearning. It struck a chord in him he’d never known was there before, not sexual but something buried even deeper, something that he couldn’t name but that felt far too softhearted and yielding. He fought it, trying to bury it deep again, back in whatever hiding place it had sprung from. It didn’t want to go.
“Go on,” he said, unable to control the gruffness of his voice. Kendall seemed to hesitate, then acceded to the necessity of moving on.
“He wants us both to write out statements about what’s happened. Including Alice’s threats, and the money she put in my account. He’ll start the challenge proceedings with the probate court as soon as he gets here.”
“Not fast enough,” Jason said, his brain starting to work again.
“What?” She seemed startled.
“Alice will be moving already. To solidify her position as head of Hawk Industries.”
Kendall looked puzzled. “Well, yes, I’m sure she will. In fact, I imagine she’s already called an emergency meeting of the board of directors.”
You bet she has, Jason thought. And he wasn’t the least bit surprised that Kendall had guessed it; he’d at last come to realize she was every bit as smart and knowledgeable as Aaron’s executive assistant would have had to have been.
“But that doesn’t matter to us right now,” Kendall said. “It doesn’t affect Aaron’s bequest to you, which is purely cash and bearer bonds.”
Uh-oh, Jason thought. That had been a mistake. He’d lost his focus for a moment there. As far as Kendall knew, he had no reason to be interested in what Alice was doing to assure her position at Hawk.
“He originally wanted to leave you a large interest in Hawk Industries,” Kendall said gently, as if she thought he’d been hurt by what she’d said. “But he was afraid Alice would fight that even harder, and that she might get backing for that fight from the board, since you were an unknown quantity and it could possibly be shown to be against the best interests of the rest of the stockholders to have you hold a controlling interest.”
“And fight she would,” Jason murmured, almost under his breath. He barely managed to repress a mocking smile at the fact that his father had, unintentionally, provided his son with the final piece he needed to carry out what he’d been planning for two decades. He’d make the old man roll over in his grave yet.
“Yes,” Kendall said. “But she couldn’t legally fight a cash bequest, given strictly out of Aaron’s personal assets.”
“Nice assets,” Jason said wryly. “A cool twenty-five million, without even touching the business.”
“But Alice will still be in no hurry to give that away,” Kendall said warningly. “There’s always a shortage of ready cash in businesses the size of Hawk.”
Time to recover from that little miscue, Jason thought. “I know she won’t. That’s why I think we’d better start the ball rolling now, instead of waiting for Wellford to get back here. The sooner we present this”—he gestured to the copies of the codicil—“to the court, the further along we’ll be when he gets here.”
Kendall looked at him for a moment. “You know once we do that, once she knows absolutely for sure that we’re going to fight her, she’ll . . . throw everything into stopping us.”
Exactly, Jason thought. And an old feeling he hadn’t had in a long time poured through him, a feeling of challenge, of rising to the fight, of scenting victory and chasing it with all that was in him. It roused predatory instincts in him that he hadn’t used in a long while, and it sent his pulse racing. His blood was up, and he was closing in.
“I’m counting on it,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-one
“I DON’T GET IT,” Darren Whitewood said, sounding genuinely puzzled. “There’s nothing in this for her but trouble, why is she doing it?”
“Because she’s a naive, idealistic little fool.” Alice snapped out the words, her rage making it difficult for her to keep from screeching.
“Don’t know whether she’s a fool or not,” the other man in the room put in as he plucked two blond hairs from the sleeve of his brown jacket, scowled at them, then let them drift to the floor. “But that guy isn’t. That was a very slick maneuver he pulled last night. And they disappeared afterward like pros. The bus, the airline tickets . . . yeah, real slick.”
“Oh, really?” Alice turned on the man, glaring. “Or were you just caught with your pants down?”
The man appeared completely unmoved by her insult. “I appreciate a real challenge now and then,” he said. “This guy just might be one.”
His calm scraped on Alice’s already raw nerves. “Do you know how much time we wasted, after you lost them? We spent all night and most of the day trying to track them down in San Francisco and L.A., when they actually never went more than twenty miles from Sunridge!”
“I said he was slick,” the pale blond said calmly.
“That’s what you’re supposed to be,” Whitewood said derisively, patting his own waves of blond hair, as if in reaction to the other man’s shedding.
Then he froze in midmotion as a pair of cold, lifeless eyes focused on him. He slowly lowered his hand.
Whitewood looked, Alice thought, not without some enjoyment, like a man who had just seen a ghost. His own. And perhaps he wasn’t far off the mark; she’d considered the possibility of having to rid herself of the pompous young attorney permanently when this was over. She wasn’t at all sure she trusted him to keep his mouth shut. Like so many others, he was all talk, and turned a little green when faced with reality.
Seemingly unable to speak while pinned by those dead eyes, Whitewood just stared as if paralyzed, until the man finally looked away, studying his sleeve as if looking for more escaping strands of hair.
“I found them again, didn’t I?” the man said. “It was easy, once we found out neither one of them got on those flights.”
“Lucky, you mean, that they were still in that airport hotel,” Alice said.
The man shrugged unconcernedly. “One man’s luck is another man’s skill.”
“Well you should have gotten skillful sooner,” Alice said sharply. “Before they had the time to obstruct my plans.”
“You’re the one who wouldn’t let me do the job properly,” the man in the brown jacket retorted, still without heat, in that calm, almost bored voice.
“I didn’t want to draw that kind of attention,” Alice said.
Whitewood finally found his voice again, clearing his throat audibly and looking a little bewildered by this turn in the conversation.
“Yes, well . . . let’s consider our position, here,” he said. “Presuming we don’t wish to accept the codicil as—”
“Accept it?” Alice felt her heart begin to pound far too hard and far too fast. “Give that bastard twenty-five million dollars that is rightfully mine?”
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